Makerfield

18 June is the day that the Makerfield by-election takes place. 

Rupert Lowe MP is very popular around the Yarmouth area.  He is MP for Yarmouth and he keeps a high profile.  When he first became MP there he was a member of the Reform Party.    He now has his own political party, Restore Britain; in Yarmouth he calls his party Great Yarmouth First.  

In the recent local authority elections his party took all 9 seats on the coastal belt around Yarmouth and knocked Reform to kingdom come in those areas.   

In the rest of Norfolk Reform, and Nigel Farage, did rather better.  In my local authority area I voted the day before I went on holiday and voted Conservative.  Reform narrowly defeated the Conservative candidate, a well known local member of the community who has represented the area on the council for many years.  I was quite surprised when I got home to discover the result. It was very close. Both candidates polled over 1000 votes but Reform just won.

Rupert Lowe is becoming a pain in the neck at the moment.  He is putting his fall-out with Nigel Farage and Reform above everything else in the Makerfield by-election this week.  I have already said  previously on the blog that Andy Burnham is going to win but it somehow grates on me that Rupert Lowe is making it so bloody easy for Labour by splitting the opposition vote. 

Rupert Lowe is 'good' communicator on X and he makes a lot of noise on a daily basis.  He donates all his MPs salary to small, local charities in Yarmouth.  He is well liked and who can blame them.  

He used to come across as a relatively good guy until the fall out with Farage where it appeared that Lowe had been stitched up with some bullying charges and then expelled from Reform.  

Then Lowe started to become  more and more outspoken like a man suddenly let loose with nobody holding him back to the point of making some  pretty mad speeches about becoming Prime Minister and saving the country and being able to repeal everything that the Blair government put in place and which the Tories  failed to achieve in 14 years,  not through lack of trying I might add.  I would almost go so far as to say Lowe has become deranged.  I see his latest X is he will immediately reverse the ban on social media for under 16s if he becomes PM.   It is all pie in the sky. 

A vote for Restore is a vote for Andy Burnham so please people of Makerfield on Thursday think carefully for the sake of the country and don't give Rupert Lowe's candidate your vote.  I don't think we are going to get a bit of luck and she will disappear - the Restore candidate is a woman, Rebecca Shepherd who actually sounds like a very good candidate,  and I don't truly think either way that Burnham is going to lose but it just irks me that Rupert Lowe is putting himself before everything else in this country - like heaven has no rage like love turned to hatred and hell know no fury and all that.   

I don't much care for Farage either but in this instance I would rather the country be saved by a victory for Reform and kept out of the hands of Labour and Andy Burnham heading towards a government coup and becoming PM and taking Ed Miliband with him as Chancellor of the Exchequer.   

What is one hell of a mess at the moment is about to get a hell of a lot worse if Reform don't win this by-election.  

Politically Correct

 One point I may have missed in the write up of the Henry Nowak stabbing is that the family of the murderer told significant lies.  Firstly when the brother of Vickrum Digwa rang the police to call them to the incident he lied  to the 999 operator that it was a race related stabbing of his brother.  He did not relate that it was Henry Nowak who had actually been stabbed.   The police therefore did not know that Henry Nowak had been stabbed.   

Vickrum Digwa then lied  to the police when they arrived that it had been a racial attack on himself. 

Vickrum Digwa's mother, Kiran Kaur,  hid the knife in her house and also lied to the police about the nature of the attack.

Kiran Kaur, the mother, is up for sentencing on July 19th.  She was found guilty of assisting the murderer by hiding the murder weapon and lying to the police.    

Vickrum Digwa's brother, Gurpreet, and father also face charges along with Kiran Kaur.  

Gurpreet faces charges of lying to the police about something he called a racially motivated attack.  The hearing is on 9 July.  There are a number of charges against Gurpreet including one of carrying an axe.   

The father also faces charges relating to weapons in the house. 

All the family are charged with contempt of court. 

The police will be investigating the teaching methods they are using relating to the Police Race Action Plan and Hate Crime Operational Guidance.  A survey of police found that many officers are confused and scared about how to interpret it and fear being seen as racist by the end of the training module.  

This case is about a serious matter of basic police training which the Commissioner of Police is going to look at.

The current unrest in the country relates to this police action - appearing to fall hook line and sinker for the story given by Gurpreet and Vickrum Digwa whilst Henry Nowak pleaded that he could not breathe and at this point they handcuffed him and read him the police caution.  At this point  Digwa and his family looked on and said nothing.  The brothers had already agreed their story before the police arrived.  They thought it would be to Vickrum Digwa's advantage to say this concocted story. 

Many things went wrong that night and it is further unhappiness for the British public that mistakes like this can happen possibly in the name of political correctness. 

Another serious crime has occurred.  In the next one a gay couple adopted a baby boy and in the space of just four months the baby was sexually abused by them, assaulted and died in that time because of this abuse and this case is also going to raise questions of political correctness and why they were not stopped when many hospital examinations took place and injuries were visible but the baby was not taken back into care. The court case has now ended and sentencing and enquiries await.    This case is one of sexual depravity of the  lowest of the low. 

World Cup

 Following a bad day healthwise yesterday I almost pulled out of going to the W.I. cookery demonstration this morning.  However, I had this nagging voice telling me that I can't just give up everything because of this post-viral fatigue thing I have contracted.  So I went.  I felt a bit wishy washy as I entered the room but I made it and it was a positive step and gave me some hope that I can get over this.  

I was quieter than usual I suppose and felt like I was the new girl, although those days of being the new girl were well and truly over in January but they came back to me today for some reason.  Along with the virus and the being stuck in the house for almost four weeks some of my confidence seems to have been lost.   I looked around at the 20 or so faces in the room and felt like I was lost in a sea of happy people all of whom were much healthier than me.  This is probably totally rubbish and I am sure there were some there who are a lot more ill than I am.

Anyway I was glad I went and gradually I began to feel something like my old self although I did not have a lot of energy walking back to the car when it was over. 

The demonstration was on the topic of salads and we saw Waldorf salad being made, and Caesar salad and variations on both.  It was interesting and the finished salads looked good enough for any catering establishment.  At the end we were invited to share them but I didn't eat anything.  

After a rest at lunch time I decided I had to push myself again and cut the grass.  It is getting like a hayfield and I only have to sit on the ride-on mower.  I did it and felt well pleased that I had achieved a good cut and getting it under control.  

Later I cried when I watched Spain and Cape Verde Islands in the World Cup - tears of joy for Cape Verde who in their first ever World Cup held the favourites for the Cup and the current holders of the European Cup, to a  0-0 draw.  A draw of this nature need never be dull and very often they aren't.  This was no exception and in terms of a match to view with excitement and tension it was a much better watch than the Arsenal v PSG Champions League final, though I say it myself.  (If ever there was a dull Champions League final that was the one).  Cape Verde Islands thoroughly deserved the point and their 40 year old goalkeeper was the winner with some fine saves and definitely the man of the match.  It was hard not to be crying with joy and relief for them at the end that their night of glory wasn't taken  from them in the final minutes as we all thought that Spain were bound to snatch a winner.   They didn't.  It was a great football moment in the World Cup and for football in general.   

M R James

 Whilst looking for something to watch on Prime the other night I came across a couple of documentaries on M. R. James and they were brilliant and I highly recommend them.   

The first documentary was called The Haunting of M.R James.

M.R. James was born in 1862 in Kent.  His father was a clergyman who moved to Suffolk, Great Livermere Church in fact, when James was 3 years old.   

Great Livermere Church is a wonderful old medieval church standing in a gently undulating part of Suffolk and I remember the area for two reasons, firstly travelling through there on a regular basis to visit my aunt in Bury and secondly for the sheep sales held out in the open on the Livermere fields.  There I would go as a young child with my brother, he driving the livestock float delivering sheep to the sale, me riding as sidekick.  I would stand on the windswept fields in awe of the sheep pens and farmers gathered and to me as a young child it would look like a million sheep and hundreds of men.  In reality I would guess it would be a thousand sheep and probably 50 men and boys.  There would also be lorries and cars parked upon the fields of course.  We would make our delivery and stay for the sale and wait to see if we could get any business for deliveries of sheep onwards from the sale. 

M.R. James is well known as a writer of ghost stories although his main occupation was that of a scholar of medieval literature, a  medievalist and translator of ancient medieval texts.  He was provost at Cambridge University and also at Eton College.  His father had wanted him to go into the church but young James had other ideas and was said to have been translating ancient texts when he was a very young boy of under 10.  His father was thought to also be a clever man with languages and no doubt taught his son. 

The ghost stories were written as entertainment for his student friends at Cambridge where evenings before television would be spent storytelling over a drink or two. 

The ghost stories that M.R. James is most well known for today were definitely not very important to him in his working lifetime,  they were entertainment.  Of course he had a great interest in ghostly things and dreams but it is not known from where the stories really came: were they entirely imagination or some ghostly experiences he had in the rooms of Great Livermere Rectory and in the lonely fields and lanes around where he lived?

The Second Documentary

One of the best known stoies is Whistle and I'll Come to You My Lad and the second documentary I watched on the same evening was Wits in Felixstowe which was the setting for that particular story and is filmed entirely on location in the Felixstowe area with snippets of Ipswich and the Cobbold family, with whom he was friends,  and some very interesting background to M.R. James. As a child my father would take us to Felixstowe so I enjoyed the filming and recognised some of the spots we would go to.  The documentary had the folk song of Whistle and I'll Come to You My Lad sung by soprano Patricia Hammond hauntingly in the background. For this alone it is worth watching, she has such a beautiful voice.  The BBC has made two adaptations of the ghost story.  

Both documentaries are free on Amazon Prime and the ghost story Whistle and I'll Come to You is available at £1.98.  

I don't watch or read ghost stories but I did find the two documentaries about M.R. James fascinating.  

Neighbours to the rescue

 As I am suffering from the post viral fatigue - I hesitate now to say long covid having been put in my place by the troll the other day that I don't have long covid, how he would know this I have no idea,  so I am therefore adopting the description of "post viral fatigue" - I have been unable to look after myself or the garden as I should. 

Over the last few days the neighbours have taken over the care of the rough grass and hedge.  John came round yesterday to say he would strim for me - strimming I have not been able to do because I am too weak to lift and control the strimmer.  He said he had noticed the rougher grass getting out of control when he drove past.  I thanked him profusely and accepted his offer of help.  

Sue on the other side has taken care of the hedges by sending her gardener round.  I can manage the ride-on I think and will do that if possible next week to keep the main grass down from being another crop of hay.

Foil wrapped food has also been appearing in the form of cakes and sausage rolls. 

David, my neighbour who fed the cats while I was away, has been taking care of the bins for me. 

I hope I can get out and about again soon but as I said before, it is just a matter of taking it slowly and pacing myself.  I made a trip to the supermarket one day but had to come straight home again as I arrived at the supermarket door and lost all energy and couldn't go in so turned back rather than collapse and being whisked off in an ambulance.  I have subsequently been again and did a small shop of milk and essentials.  Big time spent going round a supermarket is still a no no. 

The sweats appear to have gone and the fatigue and breathlessness are the main problems I am left with.   I am sleeping ok which is a blessing. 

I missed the Creative East singing and dancing session on Thursday, out of the question to join it.  Next week there is a W.I. cookery demonstration where all I have to do is sit and watch.  It is the cookery sub-group and usually only lasts an hour.  That may be my first outing.  We shall see. 

It would help if the weather improved I think.  I have had to have some heating on in the evenings for a couple of hours and the electric blanket to warm the bed too.  Oh for some June weather. 

Blair's Britain

I still like to write.  Some don't.   Fear, indifference, ignorance, total lack of interest in their country stops speech?  Total lack of interest in the future?   Total giving up and "I can't do anything about it" attitude?  I can hear some saying that.  Others will just think nothing is happening which is why I have been highlighting criminal activity in Yorkshire as an example of the fact that plenty is happening everywhere.  

Turning to Makerfield:  Facts from a Makerfield resident:  During the Labour years of 1997 to 2009 council tax went up by 5.7%.  During the Tory years it went up 0.82%.  On the arrival of Andy Burnham as Mayor council tax has gone up by 4.1%.   These were the bad Tories of course.  

Andy Burnham gives lots of posh flats to Manchester, for the wealthy young professionals, or the civil servants who will only vote Labour because Labour will pay them best and give them the gold-plated pensions forever.   Flats for the smart and no flats for the poor.  Manchester recovers from the IRA with streets not seen before. 

Andy Burnham is not the man for Britain.  

Nor is his wife who will benefit from the EV net zero high end contracts in her high end directorship  of the ev charging vehicle company in your street, your neck of the woods, the welled heeled Marie-France Van Heel.  She is the Chief Marketing Director.   You didn't know his wife was that woman did you?  Well you do now.  Don't think it is Tories who are the wrong 'uns in your Britain. 

Before the Belfast attempted de-capitation of an innocent worker happened,  white, male, walking without a care in the world like you do when you are in the street going about your business thinking about your tea, the  British people were upset at the attacks on them in innocent streets and being classed as second class citizens in their own country.    

The first class citizens are the illegal immigrants who come with lies and seeking asylum, machetes, guns, sign-on scams for the whole family at the DSS office,  hate for us and smirks across their faces at the money they can get, at the head of the queue and shove you backwards.   They are homeless so they go to the top of the council house list and your application which has been patiently sitting there for three years goes down a line or two or three or four.   Admit it, you know all this but pretend it is bad to think it because you are brainwashed that it would be wrong to think that you deserve anything, you are not wanted anymore and you are starting to believe that it is right and you must hang your head and accept it because you have been wicked. You begin to subconsciously censor your thoughts. 

Did you know that Britain is the only country in the world that dislikes its own people?  It would seem to be that way.   

In Azerbaijan which many will say is a wicked dictatorship it was clean and safe.  Vaping is not allowed and vapes are not allowed in the country because the wicked dictatorship (I am being sarcastic in case it is difficult to understand via the written word on the internet) do not trust the safety of vaping and not enough is known about the dangers so its people are protected from them. 

When I see teenagers vaping here I want to tell them to stop.  It is a crying shame to see beautiful young people clutching vapes and doing goodness knows what to their arteries and lungs.  In vape shops young people are corrupted and lured in with cheap kicks.   And like the barbers shops in every street of every town,  the vape shops are covers for all sorts of drug deals and money laundering and crime and making teenagers drug runners. 

This country is corrupt and indecent to its very core. Much as the politicians may wish to hide it and pretend otherwise and act puzzled about its subjects, they can't do that for ever more.  Hillary Benn let himself down in Parliament the other day by pretending to not know what an alien let into the country is.  Shame on you Benn. 

My garden grows with grass and wild flowers but its beauty is nothing in this filthy, ruined country.  Once again Tony Blair has a lot to answer for.  

A Change or AOC; who or what is that?

 AOC fumbles for an exit when the going gets tough. 

AOC embraces the woke of the liberals and she is going to fail for this very point. 

Voters remember this at the ballot box.  AOC is not the candidate for the Democrats to win.  AOC struggles to gain traction.  She goes on about Trump weaponsizing the justice system.  Democrats did the same thing in pursuit of Trump.    Pure unfiltered hypocrisy.  

Fumbling stumbling woman when caught in a corner.   

AOC fails to resonate with Americans outside the Democratic bubble on the far left that she lives in. 

She speaks in political deflection and gibberish. 

Intellectual honesty does not exist on the left in the US or in Britain.  

Her message, tax the rich. 

The core reason AOC fails to connect.  Her ideology fails where mainstream voters are concerned.  

Who or what is AOC?  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  

New York Congresswoman.  Democrat as if I need to tell you. 

Makes a change here for me  to look at someone like this in the US.  They all get pretty upset about Trump and she likes to claim things like Americans hate women;  too many liberals like to say that America is ugh. Their country is ugh they say.    Iron clad evidence for this is that Kamala Harris lost.  That is all AOC  has to say when questioned.   Kamala Harris could not survive a difficult question.  She never separated herself from radical woke agenda.  She lost because the American voters found her lacking.  They evaluated her record and she was lacking.    Same is going to happen for AOC.

Who loves America?  Immigrants.   Who loves Britain?  Immigrants.   

A catastrophic candidate for 2028?  Well yes, lets have her like another Kamala Harris, who can't answer difficult questions and whinges on about Trump.  New York doesn't run America, or does it?   No, of course it doesn't.  I bet Mamdani loves AOC.   The rest of America?  No, I doubt it. 

You might be hearing her name a lot so you may as well hear it here first.  Education, education education. 

You want her in charge of foreign policy?  You want to question her on Ukraine? You want to question her on Russia, Cuba and China?  (Please note the three in the same breath).   You want to question her on Israel, well you probably already know the answer to that one, she loves Hamas.